Income Inequality and Life Expectancy

There’s an interesting story in The Upshot section of The New York Times this week about income inequality and life expectancy. The story highlights a study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that looks at the relationship between having higher income inequality in a community and the life expectancy of the people who live there.

The researchers found that those who lived in communities with higher inequality were more likely to die before age 75 than those with lower inequality.

(Via AIER)


See also: The American people are clueless: Why income inequality is so much worse than we realize

U.S. Health Map

With Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation‘s interactive map, you can explore health trends in the United States at the county level for both sexes in:
• Life expectancy between 1985 and 2010
• Hypertension in 2001 and 2009
• Obesity from 2001 to 2011
• Physical activity from 2001 to 2011

Learn more here.

Why Men Die Younger Than Women: The 'Guys Are Fragile' Thesis

From NPR:

The 19th century just lost its last living man.

Jiroemon Kimura, of Kyotango, Japan, was born in April 1897, lived right through the 20th century and died last Wednesday. He was 116. According to Guinness World Records (which searches for these things), he was the last surviving male born in the 1800s. All the other boys from that century, as best we know, are dead.

The ladies, however, are still ticking. Misao Okawa of Osaka is now officially the oldest person on the planet. She was born in 1898. There are four others — two in Britain, one in the USA, and another in Japan — all 19th century-born, all female, all still alive.

Once again, the ladies have outlasted the gentlemen. Not that that's a big surprise.

Life Expectancy at All Time High; Death Rates Reach New Low, New Report Shows

Source: National Center for Health Statistics (CDC)

U.S. life expectancy reached nearly 78 years (77.9), and the age-adjusted death rate dropped to 760.3 deaths per 100,000 population, both records, according to the latest mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report, Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2007, was issued this week by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data are based on nearly 90 percent of death certificates in the United States.

The 2007 increase in life expectancy – up from 77.7 in 2006 — represents a continuation of a trend. Over a decade, life expectancy has increased 1.4 years from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007.

See also Births: Preliminary Data for 2007.

Fun with Numbers: 9/12/07 edition

I went to the ABC News website to see all the stories of interest that were published on September 12. Some, but not all, were generated by the release of new American Factfinder data released on that date.

Life Expectancy of Americans Climbs to 78 Years, Longest in U.S. History, Government Says.

The number of deaths in the United States rose in 2005 after a sharp decline the year earlier.

Housing Costs Devour a Larger Part of Americans' Income, Forcing Cuts Elsewhere

California lawmakers once again have failed to agree on legislation that would strip them of the powerful role of drawing the state's legislative and congressional districts.
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Hispanic Business' take on the increasing number of Mexicans.